Valentine’s Day Cake

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Our Valentine’s Day Cake is absolutely beautiful and super tasty! It’s a triple layer pink and white cake with homemade vanilla frosting on top.

Valentines Day Cake slice

3 Layer Valentine’s Day Cake

This cake uses one of my favorite baking methods: taking a plain box cake and turning it into something beautiful. Absolutely anyone can make this cake that looks like it came from the bakery.

We’re making all sorts of red, white and pink treats for Cupid’s holiday. To me, this holiday has the best color scheme of them all. Go check out some of our favorites Valentine’s Day Cakes: Chocolate Valentine Surprise Cake | Valentine’s Day Cheesecake | Heart Shaped Cookie Cake | Strawberry Dark Chocolate Cake | Red Velvet Cake.

Valentines Day Cake slice on a plate

Ingredients You’ll Need

  • White Cake Mix – plus the ingredients on the box including eggs, water and oil.
  • Food Coloring – you’ll need pink gel food coloring.
  • Vanilla Buttercream unsalted butter, powdered sugar, heavy whipping cream, vanilla extract, pink food coloring
  • Decorating – Sprinkles and maraschino cherries (optional).
  • Equipment – Piping bag, #17 tip, heat cookie cutter (optional).

How To Make A Valentine’s Day Cake

  • Cake: In a large bowl, mix all the cake ingredients until combined. Separate the batter into two bowls. Using gel coloring, dye one bowl of batter pink. Scoop alternate colors of cake batter into the cake pans to create a fun Valentine tie-dye effect. You don’t have to be really careful with this, it does not need to be perfect. Pour the batter in the prepared pans, bake and cool before frosting.
  • Frosting: Mix all the ingredients (except the food coloring) until stiff peak forms. Separate the the icing into 2 bowls by coloring 1/3 of icing in one bowl and 2/3 of the rest into another bow.
  • Decorating: Frost between the cake layers and then frost the outside. Using the pink frosting, pipe drips around the edges. Use a heart cookie cutter or template to make the outline of a hear on the side. With a piping bag and a #17 tip, pipe on the pink frosting to make a heart. Add dollops of extra frosting around the edges and top with cherries.
Valentines Day Cake with a heart

Tips and Tricks

Frosting: feel free to swap out the vanilla buttercream with cream cheese frosting.

Decorating: We love the colors of the “drip”, but you could also switch this our with chocolate ganache if you prefer. Instead of cherries you could add small strawberries or any other berries.

Valentines Day Cake slice

Other Valentine’s Day Desserts

Valentine's Day Cake feature
5 from 1 vote

Valentine’s Day Cake

Our Valentine's Day Cake is absolutely beautiful and super tasty! It's a triple layer pink and white cake with homemade vanilla frosting on top.
Servings: 12 servings
Prep: 40 minutes
Cook: 32 minutes
Total: 1 hour 12 minutes

Ingredients
  

Cake Ingredients

Vanilla Frosting Ingredients:

Instructions

Cake Directions

  • Preheat oven to 350 and prepare cake pans with non-stick baking spray.
  • Using a hand mixer and large bowl, beat all cake ingredients until combined and smooth. Divide the cake batter into two bowls.
  • Mix in a few drops of Pink food coloring into one bowl, leaving the batter in the second bowl white.
  • Alternate the batters by scooping in ¼ cup of colored batter into each cake pan on top of each other to create a tie-dye effect.
  • Place into the oven and bake for 28-32 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool completely before frosting.

Frosting Directions:

  • Using a standing mixer, beat all ingredients except for the food coloring until combined and smooth but stiff with peaks.
  • Scoop 2 cups of frosting into one of the two medium bowls, and 1 cup of frosting into the other bowl.
  • Mix in 2 drops of pink gel food coloring into the bowl with the most frosting.
  • Mix in 4 drops of gel food coloring into bowl with the smaller amount.

Building the Cake Directions:

  • Scoop 1 cup of white frosting into 1 side of the large piping bag with the star tip.
  • Add 1 cup of the light pink frosting into the other side of the same piping bag.
  • Place one cake layer onto the cake board and cut the dome off the cake to make an even layer. Repeat step with other two layers.
  • Scoop 1 cup of white frosting onto the bottom layer and spread evenly.
  • Place the second cake layer on top and spread evenly with 1 more cup of frosting.
  • Add the last layer of cake on top and frost with remaining white frosting.
  • Put the cake in the fridge to allow the base frosting to harden for about 30 minutes.
  • Using the remaining light pink frosting, place into the microwave for about 10 second to soften it. Scoop into the piping bag.
  • Scoop the darker pink into the other piping bag with the #17 tip.

Decorating Directions:

  • Using the piping bag with the lighter pink, cut the tip off the bag. Pipe drips around the edge of the cake. Sprinkle some of the heart sprinkles onto the drips.
  • Lightly push the cookie cutter into the front center of the cake to create an outline. Using the darker pink frosting, pipe and fill in the heart.
  • Using the larger piping bag with the star tip, pipe dollops of frosting onto the top of the cake. Add more sprinkles and top with cherries.

Last Step:

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Nutrition

Serving: 12g | Calories: 994kcal | Carbohydrates: 131g | Protein: 6g | Fat: 51g | Saturated Fat: 31g | Cholesterol: 123mg | Sodium: 643mg | Potassium: 108mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 96g | Vitamin A: 1428IU | Calcium: 212mg | Iron: 2mg

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